WELL; Vital Signs | Nutrition: Trans Fat Limits Show Benefits in New York

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Published: July 24, 2012

The City of New York has dealt with legal challenges, and its mayor has endured some ridicule, but the new regulations on trans fats in restaurant foods appear to be having the intended effect.

The law, in full effect as of July 2008, restricts restaurants from using food that contains partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and has a total of 0.5 grams or more of trans fat per serving.

City health officials recorded about 7,000 purchases of food at 168 randomly selected fast-food restaurants in 2007 and again in 2009. Over all, average trans fat per purchase decreased by 2.4 grams over the two years, while saturated fat increased by 0.55 grams, for a net decrease of 1.9 grams of fat per purchase. (The researchers did not include intake of monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats.) The study included restaurants from 13 chains, and results were the same in high- and low-income areas.

The analysis, in Annals of Internal Medicine last week, also found that 59 percent of purchases in 2009 contained no trans fat at all, compared with 32 percent in 2007.

''It's exciting news,'' said an author of the study, Christine J. Curtis, the director of nutrition strategy for the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. ''What's great about this is that people can walk in and order the same thing they've always ordered, and it just has less trans fat. The benefits accrued to everyone, in all neighborhoods.''

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.